“Fasces?”
“Bundles of birch rods sheathing iron axes—ancient ceremonial weapons that are part of the trappings of a Roman magistrate when he goes about in public. Suitable for Rome, perhaps, but not for Alexandria! Or so the people thought; the crowd was so outraged at this slight to Your Majesty’s dignity—that a Roman should strut about the city in the king’s absence as if Egypt were a province of Rome—that they raised an outcry and gathered up anything they could find in the market—fruit, vegetables, fish—and proceeded to pelt the Romans until they withdrew to their ships. Now Caesar awaits your arrival before daring to set foot in the city again.”
Ptolemy laughed. “It seems there was a battle, and Caesar was forced to retreat! As my father used to say, it never pays to get on the wrong side of the Alexandrian mob. We shall have to consider how to welcome the Roman consul in a more suitable fashion.”
He gazed down at the jar at his feet, and smiled.
CHAPTER X
The approach to Alexandria by royal barge was a new experience for me, and bittersweet. Each time I felt a prick of novelty, I also felt a stab of grief, for Bethesda was not there to share the experience.
Fifteen miles east of Alexandria, the canal from the Nile passes through a town called Canopus, notorious as a pleasure resort for the idle rich of the city. Out of curiosity, I visited Canopus once when I lived in Alexandria as a young man, but in those days even the trinkets in the curio shops were beyond my meager means, and I could only peer into the dining establishments, gambling houses, and brothels along the canal. Forty years later, I again found myself passing through the town, but this time I was seated next to the king himself!
Pleasure-seekers thronged the waterfront to have a look at the royal barge and steal a peek at its occupant. Ptolemy remained seated on his throne at the center of the barge and ignored the waving throng, but I thought I saw a shadow of a smile on his lips when we heard the cheering spectators cry out his name. Egypt might be torn by civil war, but among the pleasure class of Alexandria, Ptolemy’s claim to the throne was apparently not in dispute.
From Canopus to Alexandria the canal grew considerably wider, so as to accommodate the numerous barges traveling back and forth. In deference to the royal vessel, all others pulled aside and stopped whenever they met us, so that our progress was unimpeded. Barge after barge we passed, some privately owned and luxuriously outfitted, others serving as common carriers offering various classes of accommodation. As a young man, I had traveled to Canopus standing upright on a barge so crowded I feared it would sink; we passed several of those, and their occupants seemed distinctly less enthusiastic about their monarch than had the diners and gamblers along the waterfront in Canopus. Some of the faces that stared back at us looked positively hostile. Did they favor Ptolemy’s sister Cleopatra in the struggle for the succession? Or were they altogether weary of the Ptolemies and the chaos they had inflicted on Egypt in recent years?
Approaching Alexandria, the canal split into two branches, and we took the one to the left. A concentration of palm trees appeared on the flat horizon ahead of us, lining the shore of Lake Mareotis; reflecting the sun overhead, the lake appeared as a scintillating line beyond the silhouettes of tree trunks. The trees grew nearer; the scintillating line became a visible expanse of water. The banks of the canal grew wilder, with rushes on either side. We rounded a small bend and entered Lake Mareotis, more an inland sea than a mere lake. Ahead of us, along the distant shore, was the low, jumbled skyline of Alexandria, with the Pharos lighthouse looming beyond.
Fishing boats and private vessels drew back to make way for the king. Two small warships manned by soldiers in ceremonial armor sailed out to greet us, then turned about and formed an escort for the arrival of the royal barge.
Beneath the city walls, at the busy lakeside harbor, courtiers and soldiers awaited us on a jetty festooned with colorful pennants. The barge pulled beside the landing and came to a gentle stop. Ptolemy rose from his throne, grasping his crook and flail. Courtiers fell in behind him, each seeming to know his exact place in order of rank. I hung back, not sure where I belonged. Pothinus whispered in my ear, “Just follow me, and keep quiet.”
A ritual ceremony attended the king’s arrival on the jetty, with various members of the court welcoming Ptolemy back to his capital. Then the king stepped into a fabulously decorated litter, its canopy fringed all about with pink-and-yellow tassels, its beams and posts carved of ebony chased with silver, the whole vehicle carried aloft on the shoulders of a team of immensely muscular slaves who were as naked as horses, adorned by nothing more than a few straps of leather and swatches of linen.
Behind the king’s litter was another conveyance, almost as magnificent. Pothinus ushered me inside and then joined me. We were hoisted aloft. Surrounded by armed guards and preceded by a veritable orchestra of pipers (playing in unison a festive tune now quite familiar to me), we were carried down the long jetty. The walls of Alexandria stretched to either side of us. Before us loomed the high bronze doors of the Gate of the Sun. The doors swung open. A warm breeze issued from within, as if the city itself released a sigh at the return of its monarch. The royal procession entered the city.
After so many delays and detours, I was back in Alexandria. The scent of the city—for, like a woman, Alexandria has its own perfume, compounded of sea air, flowers, and hot desert breezes—swept over me, and with it a nostalgia far more powerful and all-encompassing than I had anticipated. The flood of memories made me tremble. The absence of Bethesda made me weep. If I had possessed her remains, I could at least have given her, in death, the homecoming she had longed for; but even that small consolation was not possible. I possessed no urn full of ashes, no box containing her mummified remains. Suppressing a sob, I whispered to the air, “Here we are at last, after so many years away!” But there was no one to hear except Pothinus, who gave me a curious side-long glance and looked away.
We traveled up the Argeus, the principal north-south street of the city, a magnificent promenade one hundred feet wide, with fountains, obelisks, and palm trees down the middle and a colonnade of painted marble statues and fluted columns on each side. Crowds gathered to watch from a safe distance, keeping clear of the armed guards who flanked the king’s procession. Many cheered; some drew back, scowling; some shrieked and babbled and prostrated themselves, as if overwhelmed by religious awe. I gathered that Ptolemy was many things to many people: king, hero, usurper, persecutor, god. Would it be so in Rome when Caesar returned there in glory? It was hard to imagine any Roman citizen bowing to another man as if he were divine, but the fate of the world had taken such a tortuous path in recent years that anything seemed possible.
Due to its flat terrain, Alexandria is unusual among great cities for being laid out in a grid, with the streets intersecting at right angles to form rectangular blocks. In Rome, a city of hills and valleys, one comes to a corner where numerous streets intersect, each narrow lane winding off in a different direction, some heading uphill and others downhill; every intersection is unique, and together they offer an endless succession of intriguing sights. In Alexandria the horizon is low, and the broad avenues offer distant views in all directions. The landmark that dominates all else is the Pharos lighthouse, towering impossibly high above the great harbor, its flaming beacon a rival to the sun itself.
It would be hard to say which city seems bigger. Rome is a crowded jumble of shops, tenements, temples, and palaces, with one thing built on top of another and no sense of order or proportion, a once-quaint village grown madly out of control, bustling and swaggering with brash vitality. Alexandria is a city of wide avenues, grand squares, magnificent temples, impressive fountains, and secluded gardens. The precision of its Greek architecture exudes an aura of ancient wealth and a passion for order; even in the humble tenements of the Rhakotis district or the poorer sections of the Jewish Quarter, an invincible tidiness holds squalor at bay. But while the Alexandrians love beauty and precision, the hea
t of the Egyptian sun induces a certain languor, and the tension between these two things—orderliness and lassitude—gives the city its unique, often puzzling character. To a Roman, Alexandria seems rather sleepy and self-satisfied, and too sophisticated for its own good—sophisticated to the point of world-weariness, like an aging courtesan past caring what others might think. To an Alexandrian, Rome must seem impossibly vulgar, full of loud, brash people, bombastic politicians, clashing architecture, and claustrophobic streets.
We arrived at the great crossroads of the city—the crossroads of the world, some would say—where the Argeus intersects the main east-west avenue, the equally broad Canopic Way, perhaps the longest street in the world. The intersection of these two avenues is a grand square with a magnificent fountain at its center, where marble naiads and dryads cavort with crocodiles and Nile river-horses (or hippopotami, as the Greeks call them) around a towering obelisk. The intersection of the Argeus and the Canopic Way marks the beginning of the royal precinct of the city, with its state offices, temples, military barracks, and royal residences. Occupying each of the four corners of the intersection are colonnaded buildings that house the tombs of the Ptolemaic kings and queens of Egypt. The most opulent of these tombs is that of the city’s founder, Alexander the Great, whose mummified remains are an object of wonder to visitors who travel from all over the world to gaze upon them. Great tablets adorn the walls of the tomb, with painted reliefs that depict the conqueror’s many exploits. On this day, as on every day, a long queue of people stood waiting for their turn to step inside. One by one, they would be allowed to shuffle past the body of Alexander, so as to look for a moment (and at a distance, for the open sarcophagus lies beyond a protective chain and a row of guards) at the face of history’s most famous man. In the years that I had lived in Alexandria, I had never entered the conqueror’s tomb; the price of admission had been too dear for a vagabond young Roman with no steady income.
As we passed by the tomb, those in the queue turned to watch the royal procession. On this day, they would catch a glimpse not only of Alexander but also of his living heir.
Beside me in the litter, Pothinus released a heavy sigh. I turned to look at him, and saw that he gazed abstractedly at his fingernails. “At Casium, we almost had her!” he muttered.
I said nothing, but he turned and saw the puzzlement on my face.
“Cleopatra,” he explained. “The king’s sister. South of the village of Casium, at the outermost eastern frontier, we very nearly had her.”
“There was a battle?” I said, striving to show polite interest.
“More precisely, there was not a battle,” said Pothinus. “Had we been able to confront her in a decisive engagement, that would have been the end of Cleopatra and her ragtag band of bandits and mercenaries. The king’s army is bigger, better trained, better equipped—and far more cumbersome. Rather like matching a Nile river-horse against a sparrow; the beast would have no trouble crushing the bird, provided he could catch it first. Time and again they eluded us. We were in the middle of engineering a trap in the hills not far from Casium when word came that Pompey and his fleet had just arrived off the coast.”
“You could have crushed Cleopatra first, then met with Pompey.”
“That was what Achillas advised. But the risk seemed too great. What if Cleopatra eluded us once again—and it was to her that Pompey made his overture? Then we would have had Cleopatra and Pompey on one side of us, and Caesar on the other. Not a pretty place to be. Better to deal with each threat, one at a time.”
“Starting with the one most readily disposed of?” I suggested. What an easy target poor Pompey had turned out to be!
“We considered the threat posed by Pompey, and, as you might say, decided to head him off.” Pothinus smiled and looked pleased with himself. It might have been Achillas who struck the blow, but I gathered that Pothinus was the author of the scheme, and not averse to taking credit for it.
“The king himself approved of that decision?”
“Nothing is done in the king’s name that does not have the king’s approval.”
“That sounds rather formulaic.”
“But it is true. Don’t let the king’s youth mislead you. He’s very much the son of his father, the culmination of thirteen generations of rulers. I am his voice. Achillas is his sword-hand. But the king possesses a will of his own.”
“Is his sister the same?”
“She, too, is the child of her father. If anything, being a few years older, she’s even more sure of herself than her brother.”
And even less susceptible to the influence of advisers like Pothinus, I thought. Was that why the eunuch had sided with one over the other?
“And so,” I said, “having disposed of Pompey . . .” “We hoped to return at once to the problem of Cleopatra. But the ships that gave chase to Pompey’s fleet returned with fresh intelligence about Caesar. He was said to be anchored off the island of Rhodes, planning to come to Alexandria as soon as possible. Once again it seemed prudent to turn our attention to the ‘Roman Problem,’ and postpone until a later time our dealings with the king’s sister.”
“Will Caesar then be dealt with as was Pompey?” I felt a quiver of dread, imagining Caesar’s head in a basket next to that of the Great One. What would happen to Meto if such a thing came to pass? I cursed myself for wondering. Meto had chosen to live by guile and bloodshed, and his fate had nothing to do with me.
“Caesar presents a more complex challenge,” said Pothinus, “requiring a more subtle response.”
“Because he arrives in the wake of his triumph at Pharsalus?” “Clearly, the gods love him,” acknowledged Pothinus. “But isn’t Ptolemy a god?” “The will of the king concerning Caesar shall be made manifest in the fullness of time. First, we shall see what awaits us in the harbor.” Pothinus looked at me shrewdly. “They say, Gordianus-called-Finder, that the gods granted you the gift of compelling outspokenness and forthrightness in those you meet. Strangers confide in you. Men like Caesar and Pompey unburden themselves to you. Even the king does not seem immune to this power of compelling candid speech. Even I appear to be susceptible to it!”
“‘They say . . .’” I quoted back to him. “It’s all in your dossier. The king’s intelligence is quite extensive. His eyes and ears are everywhere.”
“Even in Rome?”
“Especially in Rome. Thus your reputation precedes you. The king himself spent an hour last night perusing your dossier and asking questions about you.”
“I suppose I should feel flattered.”
“Or lucky to still be alive. Ah, but we’ve arrived at the gates of the royal residence. Time for more formalities, I fear, and an end to our conversation.”
Gates opened, and the procession entered the complex of royal residences along the waterfront. It was said that each successive ruler in the line of Ptolemies had felt obliged to add to the royal habitations; thus, over the centuries, the complex had become the most sumptuous concentration of wealth and luxury in the world—a city within the city, with its own temples, courtyards, living quarters, and gardens, honeycombed with hidden chambers and secret passages.
The gates shut behind us. We were in a narrow courtyard surrounded by high walls. The litters were set upon blocks. Pothinus stepped out and attended the king, who emerged from his litter to the greetings of fawning courtiers. For the moment I seemed to have been forgotten, and I sat back against the cushions of the litter, bemused by the twists of fate that had brought me to such a curious place. I felt a prick of anxiety, wondering what had become of Rupa and the boys, and then a sudden overwhelming homesickness for Rome. What was my daughter Diana, pregnant with her second child, doing at that moment? And her son, little Aulus, and her hulking lamb of a husband, Davus? How I missed them! How I wished I was there with them, and with Bethesda, and that the two of us had never left Rome!
Somewhere in the background of my thoughts, I heard the music of Ptolemy’s piper echo between th
e narrow walls and recede into the distance. The courtyard, which had been thronged with attendants, was now almost deserted. I blinked and turned to see a young woman standing beside the litter, staring at me.
Her skin had the hue and luster of polished ebony. Her hair had been styled to take advantage of its natural coarseness so that it formed a circular nimbus around her face, like a floating frame made of black smoke that trailed into wisps along the edges. Her eyes were an unexpected green, a shade I had never seen in a Nubian before, but her high cheekbones and full lips were emblematic of the beauty of Nubian women.
She gave me a demure smile and lowered her eyes. “My name is Merianis,” she said, speaking Latin. “If you care to step from the litter, I’ll show you to your room.”
“I have a room in the palace?”
“You do. Shall I take you there now?”
I took a deep breath and stepped from the litter. “Show me the way.”
I followed her through a succession of passages, courtyards, and gardens. We drew closer to the harbor; every now and again through an opening in the walls, I spied a glimpse of sails and the sparkle of sunlight on water, and occasionally, above the rooftops, I saw the Pharos lighthouse looming in the distance. We ascended several flights of steps, then strode down a long hallway, across a bridge of stone between two buildings, and down another long hallway.
“Here,” she said, opening a wooden door.
The room was large and simply furnished, with a bed against one wall, a small table and a chair against the other, and a red-and-yellow rug of geometric Greek design on the floor. The lack of ornament was more than made up for by the breathtaking view from the tall window, from which drapes of pale yellow had been pulled back; no painting or mosaic could possibly compete with the majestic image of the Pharos, perfectly framed in the window, and a view of the great harbor dotted with ships in the foreground.
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